The Vatican secretary of state appealed for peace and diplomacy on the fifth day of the U.S. and Israel-Iran war, warning that recognition of any country's right to wage "preventive war" according to their own criteria would risk the world "being set ablaze."

In an interview on March 4, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See's top diplomat, spoke to Vatican News as the United States and Israel continued to hit Iran's capital and other cities in multiple airstrikes and as Iran responded with retaliatory strikes and drone attacks on Israel and across the region.

The cardinal expressed concern over the "erosion of international law" and condemned what he called a dangerous drift toward the "law of force" in international affairs.

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"Justice has given way to force; the force of law has been replaced by the law of force," Cardinal Parolin said, "with the conviction that peace can arise only after the enemy has been annihilated."

Cardinal Parolin stopped short of directly mentioning the United States or Israel by name, but emphasized that under the United Nations Charter, force must be considered only as a last and most grave resort after all political and diplomatic options have been exhausted, and only "after carefully assessing the limits of necessity and proportionality."

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"If states were to be recognized as having a right to "preventive war," according to their own criteria and without a supranational legal framework, the whole world would risk being set ablaze," the cardinal said.

Asked about the massive street demonstrations in Iran earlier this year which were bloodily suppressed, Cardinal Parolin said, "The aspirations of peoples must be taken into consideration and guaranteed within the legal framework of a society that ensures everyone can freely and publicly express their ideas -- and this also applies to the dear Iranian people."

"At the same time, we may ask ourselves whether anyone truly believes that the solution can come through the launching of missiles and bombs," he added.

His remarks came one day after Pope Leo XIV, told journalists at Castel Gandolfo on the evening of March 3, "Pray for peace, work for peace, less hatred. Hatred in the world is constantly increasing." The pope called on everyone to "truly strive to promote dialogue" and to "seek solutions without weapons to resolve problems."

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Pope Leo previously issued a fervent appeal for return of diplomacy in his Angelus address on March 1, about 12 hours after the U.S. and Israel revealed that Iran's supreme leader, 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed in the early morning strikes of Feb. 28.

"Faced with the possibility of a tragedy of immense proportions, I make a heartfelt appeal to all the parties involved to assume the moral responsibility of halting the spiral of violence before it becomes an unbridgeable chasm," the pope said.